Is Your House Haunted?
by jimduchene.blogspot.com
Summary: Well, is it... PUNK?


From the disembodied head floating in your living room to the one night stand who doesn't want to leave, these may all be signs that your house is haunted.

I've never seen a more paranormal infestation than the time Rebecca G. called me to see what I could do about some random guy she made the drunken mistake of bringing home one Friday night. He spent the night, didn't leave all of Saturday, and slept on the couch when he discovered Ms. G. was only easy after throwing back a few _Jose Cuervos_ on a dare.

By Sunday, he was quite comfortable making his own breakfast, and she felt compelled to call me in a panic, quite rightly believing he would _never_ vacate the premises. She was right.

Guys such as him are supernatural leeches. Like a cat, they never leave once they've been fed. So I called a priest, not to conduct an exorcism, but to perform a marriage ceremony.

That guy couldn't find the exit door fast enough.

**Who am I?**

My name is Louis Cypher, and I am a paranormal researcher, demonologist, and the only non-Catholic authorized by the holy Catholic Church to perform exorcisms. I lecture and run workshops when I'm not busy pulling a double-shift at Chic-fil-A.

Let me give you a brief history of ghosts. People have always died, so there have always been ghosts. Is that brief enough for you? Good. In that case, I'll go on to...

**Can You Gather Proof of a Haunting?**

Despite the shows you've seen on TV, where you'll waste several hours of your life watching grown men coming up empty-handed episode after episode, gathering proof is rather easy.

There was one time I was gathering proof when I accidentally jumped up and down on an antique piano, which had the bad judgement to collapse underneath my considerable weight.

"Oh, my God!" the owner of the piano cried out. "That's a priceless Steinway!"

"Not any more," I updated her.

"What happened?" she asked me, on the verge of suspicion.

"The ghost," I told her. "The ghost."

Yes, the ghost, indeed. I remember I also had to punch myself in the nose several times in the privacy of her bathroom to cause the proper amount of bleeding before she finally ceased her silly talk about lawsuits.

Gathering proof-I mean, _real_ proof-is all part of the importance of doing research. Doing research is hard work, and it can take an intense amount of time. If I wanted to waste my time doing hard research, I wouldn't have dropped out of school.

_But Mr. Cypher_...

Please, call me Louis.

_But Louis..._

That's MISTER Louis to you!

_But Mr. Louis, what do I do or not do if it turns out my house IS haunted?_

What are you asking ME for?

Oh, yeah... right.

Well, when an old girlfriend once told a drunken me at 4 in the morning to leave or she'd call the cops, I left. I suggest _you _do the same thing. Especially when the entity telling you to leave is a malevolent spirit, like my ex-wife.

And under no circumstances should you ever invite a spirit to join you for coffee and pastries. Spirits _love_ pastries. You'll _never_ get them to leave.

Sometimes people are unsure if whether or not to get help when their house is haunted. My rule of thumb is this: If the spirit is playful and takes out the trash without having to be asked, I say keep it. You can always use a free babysitter. If, however, the spirit is constantly pestering you at night-like my wife says I do to her-that would be the time to call me, or someone like me, but who probably won't be as good.

You say, should you call the Catholic Church?

I say, why bother?

The Catholic Church has stopped performing exorcisms, as they do not want to be accused of any more child molestations, so you're on your own, buddy.

**How Do Ghosts Communicate With The Living?**

How do you talk to your children about ghosts? What do you tell people who ask you about the paranormal? What are some frequently asked questions about ghosts and the paranormal?

Man, that sure is a lot of questions I have to ignore. I _will_ answer this, however: How do ghosts communicate with the living? Quite frankly, I don't know. I mean, they have no bodies, they can't talk, and they're dead. It's almost as if they don't really exist, and are just the machinations of a flim-flam man of the supernatural whose main agenda is making money.

Can ghosts appear in our dreams? That's a good question, my friend. There have been many cases where a dead parent has entered a child's dream to advise them on something of grave importance.

"Why don't you clean your room?" the parent from beyond might say. It's like a pig-sty in here!"

A dead husband has been known to come back and ask his wife, "How about one more time for old time's sake?" And then can be heard the rest of the night crying in the corner after she turns him down in the afterlife just as cruelly as she had cut him off in life.

Interestingly enough, my wife will have incredibly sensual dreams of sex with the spirit of a future dead Brad Pitt (which, incidentally, answers the question if a ghost can travel in time). She'll awaken to find her panties removed. I, of course, deny any knowledge of what happened.

"The ghost," I'll tell her. "The ghost."

Yes, the ghost, indeed.

**Can Ghosts Travel In Time?**

Hey, I've already said that question's been answered, but, yes, as a supernatural spirit, ghosts can freely travel the different wavelengths of time and move easily back and forth from the past to the future to the present. Incidentally, and I _do_ say "incidentally" a lot, they also get their satellite signals for free.

Ghosts are forever, but man-made structures are not. What is a ghost to do if the house it lives in is torn down, burned up, or destroyed in an earthquake or catastrophe of some kind? Who do I look like? Hank Hanagrath, the Bible Answer Man?

Do pets come back as ghosts? Will you be reunited with your beloved pet in Heaven?

No.

The house I grew up in was said to be haunted. Although I personally never saw or experienced any such manifestations, I believed my parents when they told me, "Hey, you're _40!_ Shouldn't you be moving out of the house?" That's around the time the supernatural manifestations began to occur.

One night we played on the Ouija Board, only to have Uncle Ouija spell out the words, "_GET OUT!_" for me. Many a night I was woken up in the middle of the night to the sound of someone saying, "_Get out... get out..._" in a voice that sounded eerily like my father's. When my mother would cook me my seven eggs over medium for breakfast, I would notice that all seven yolks would be broken.

"What happened to my yolks?" I'd ask her.

"The ghost," she'd tell me. "The ghost."

Yes, the ghost, indeed, but it must have been a playful entity. Some days, when I got home late after a night of drinking with my buddies, my clothes and all my belongings would be packed and sitting just outside the front doors.

"Who did this?" I would demand of my parents, and then fall on the floor.

"The ghost," they would answer together. "It must want you to leave."

Finally, I came home to find that the ghost had changed all of the locks. I knocked and knocked, and yelled and yelled, but apparently it also put a spell of silence on the house as well ("_Abra-kadorky!_"), because my parents never answered.

So I was forced to move out to the sad cheers of my mom and dad, and I've spent the rest of my life helping others with those malevolent spirits who exiled me from the only home I ever knew, as well as exorcising me from free room and board.

I've gone back to that home many times, but my parents have never answered. I think the ghost forced them to move from that house many years ago, and not leave a forwarding address.

Maybe I'll see them in the afterlife.


End file.
